


Missed Opportunities

by F00T



Series: The Takeover are #Soulmates [8]
Category: Professional Wrestling, 新日本プロレス | New Japan Pro-Wrestling
Genre: Chekhov's Bullet Club Shirt, Dirty Talk, Frottage, Light Angst, M/M, Nipple Piercings, Nipple Play, Phone Sex, Post-Break Up, Sexting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2020-09-27 21:34:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20414665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/F00T/pseuds/F00T
Summary: The downside of being friends with Tama Tonga is sometimes he convinces you to pierce your nipples and then he texts your ex about it.





	Missed Opportunities

One of the things Kenta immediately appreciated about the Bullet Club was their accommodations. Since so many of their members lived outside of Japan, the Tongans had started paying for an apartment just on the outskirts of Tokyo and making copies of the key for any of their factionmates who didn’t have a permanent residence in the country. And while Kenta did have some local relatives, he didn’t want to impose, especially since he hadn’t thought up a tactful way to tell his family, “I broke things off with my best friend and now I’m stuck in the country because we planned to spend a few weeks sight-seeing together after my tournament and oh yeah did I mention we were sleeping together? Anyway, it was extremely messy and he kicked me in the face on an international livestream, how’s the dog?” So when Tama Tonga slid a spare key into his palm and told him that there was an unused sitting room he could stay in, he jumped on the opportunity.

“It’ll be a good way to get to know the guys,” he said. “Just keep the front door locked and don’t trash the place.”

Kenta could have mentioned that he already knew plenty of the guys from earlier in his career but he figured living with them was a different matter entirely.

After a few nights of crashing in that apartment though, he had his doubts about how well staying there was working for establishing him within the Bullet Club. Tama slept there as well, but other than that, he only ever saw Tanga Loa come over, usually just to play video games all day with his brother. They always offered Kenta a spare controller if he was around (and he always accepted if he was) but he was finding that shouting at the TV during first-person shooters didn’t really offer much as a getting-to-know-you activity. When Tama did finally ask Kenta what he’d been looking to do with his free time in between the G1 Climax and the upcoming British tour, it caught him completely off guard.

“Oh...well I had plans to travel a bit,” Kenta responded, not taking his eyes off their game. “You know, visit old friends. But that fell through, so-”

“Not what I’m asking,” said Tama. “Who cares about what you’re missing out on because you ditched some chud. What do you want to do because of it? Nothing’s preventing you from doing whatever you want now.”

“Hmm, I wonder,” Kenta said. He hadn’t really thought about it, mainly because he never thought Shibata had been holding him back. 

“Yeah man,” Tanga said. “After your big scene during the finals, we all thought you’d go wild.”

“Yeah! Here’s your chance to really cut loose, K,” Tama said, dropping the controller momentarily to slap Kenta on the back. “You’re Bullet Club now. Bleach your hair, hit up some sex clubs, just go for it man.”

“Well, actually...I tried that first one once. When I was younger. It wouldn’t suit me now, I don’t think,” Kenta said.

“You know what I mean,” said Tama. “You must have something you’ve wanted to do and never really had the opportunity.”

“What, like piercing my nipples?”

Tama paused the game. “Whoa whoa WHOA, you want to do what now, bro?” he said, looking just as shocked as if Kenta had kneed him in the face.

“Don’t tell me you’ve never thought about it,” Kenta said, shrugging.

“I mean, yeah, but I didn’t realize  _ you _ had thought about it!” Tama said in response.

Tanga Loa took a sip of his beer. “Pretty cool, man. Why haven’t you done it before now?”

Kenta thought for a second. “Well, it was something I’ve been thinking about for years now,” he said, absent-mindedly scratching at the scar tracing its way down his shoulder. “But nobody would ever recommend me local places that would do it and then the timing was never right. So I just never got around to it.”

“That’s all?” Tanga said. “If you’re serious about this, I know a guy. He has a shop only a few rail stations away from here. Want me to give him a call?”

Kenta nodded. Tanga grabbed his phone and stepped into the hall. As he did so, Tama slid up next to Kenta and wrapped his arm around his shoulders.

“Oh man, I wonder what he would have thought about you piercing your nipples,” Tama said with a smirk. “You know, Shi-”

“I know,” Kenta cut him off. “And I really couldn’t tell you what he’d make of such a thing.”

Tama laughed. “Yeah, I bet he’s far too uptight for something like that. Hell, I bet he’s never even seen nipple rings on a lady, let alone another dude. It’d blow his fucking mind.”

“Heh, you’re probably right. I never really thought about how he’d react to something like that but...yeah, it’d be too much for him,” Kenta said. It was a lie, of course. He had definitely thought about what Shibata would think if he just showed up one day with his nipples pierced. When they were still together, Kenta had adored the amount of attention Shibata had paid to his chest. He had had extraordinarily sensitive nipples for as long as he could remember and, in all other circumstances, didn’t particularly care for them being touched. But he couldn’t help but feel like there was something different about the sensation of Katsuyori Shibata’s hands or mouth or any other part of him manipulating them. Something intimate. Something special. And even though the idea of piercing his nipples had been on his mind long before he and Shibata had become close, he couldn’t deny that the thought of just surprising him one day with them embellished in such a manner excited him beyond belief.

Not that he’d be able to do so any more. That bridge had been thoroughly burned and he was the one who set the fire.

“Hey, Kenta!” Tanga shouted from the hallway, startling him. “My buddy had a cancellation today so if you want, he can squeeze you in half an hour from now.”

“Tell him I’ll take it,” Kenta said.

“Fuck yeah. I’ll go with you, if you’d like. The place can be kind of hard to find,” said Tanga. “Oh, and he says wear a loose fitting shirt. Something dark, in case you bleed on it.”

“I can lend you one if you need. You usually wear your shirts pretty tight, yeah?” Tama said, slapping him on the back as he stood up and walked out of the room.

Kenta nodded and tried not to think about whose loose fitting dark shirts he used to borrow.

It wasn’t long before Tama returned, tossing Kenta a spare Bullet Club shirt that could have easily fit two of him. “That should be big enough,” he said, laughing. “You can keep that one, by the way. The manufacturer keeps giving me all the weird sizes that don’t sell. Once you’re done bleeding on it, you can sleep in it or something.”

“Sleep in it? This thing is practically a blanket,” Kenta said with a smile as he changed into the tee shirt Tama gave him. It nearly hung to his knees, but at least the fabric didn’t pull tight over his chest like his original shirt did.

Tanga leaned against the apartment’s front door and gestured towards Kenta with a jerk of his chin. “You ready? We should probably head out.”

\-----

Kenta flinched as he slowly peeled the bandages off his chest. He had been warned that the skin would be tender for quite some time after being pierced and, while that had been the case when he had his earlobe done ages ago, he nipples didn’t feel sore so much as overwhelmingly present. The feeling that the thin steel rings inserted underneath his skin imparted was impossible to ignore and exposing them to air only heightened the sensation. He dampened a cotton swab and used it to lightly wipe the dried blood from the metal and his skin. As he did so, he couldn’t stop himself from whimpering quietly at his own touch. He had been told to keep all interactions with the fresh piercings to an absolute minimum as it healed but with the sensitivity of his nipples heightened so much, there was nothing Kenta wanted more at that moment than to feel some sort of touch.

“So it went good then?” Tama Tonga’s voice interrupted him. Kenta turned to see him leaning against the frame of the bathroom door, arms crossed. 

“Hell yeah, check it out,” Kenta said, turning to face him.

Tama nodded approvingly at Kenta’s chest. “So what was it like? How painful are we talking? You gotta tell me everything, K. I’d been thinking about getting mine done too but I want to hear how your experience was first.”

"Well it definitely hurt," Kenta said. "And they're still sore. I don't even want to think about how difficult sleeping will be tonight. But the actual, painful part? It's super quick."

"You cry at all?"

"Fuck no, I didn't cry," Kenta said, thinking about how Tanga Loa had told him afterwards that he had apparently yelped loud enough at his first nipple to startle the piercing studio's receptionist.

Kenta turned back to face the mirror and dampened another cotton swab so he could continue cleaning up his new holes. He noticed Tama enter the bathroom and stand next to him in front of the sink. Tama’s hand slapped against his shoulder and he couldn’t help but flinch. The skin of his palm was rough and warm against his own and Kenta realized that he wanted nothing more in that moment but for Tama to keep it there. It had maybe been a week since had last felt someone else’s hands against him but, given how dramatically Kenta’s partnerships had changed during that time, it felt like an eternity. 

“You know,” Tama said, squeezing Kenta’s shoulder, “they do look really good on you, man. Like real good. I’m kinda jealous actually. If I got mine pierced like that, I bet they’d look fine, but yours look like they belong there. If that’s not too weird to say.”

Kenta couldn’t help but smile. “It’s not too weird. I’m...glad you like them,” he said. 

“So what do they feel like? In your nipples, I mean. Would you mind if I-” Tama said as his free hand lifted up near Kenta’s chest.

“Actually, please don’t,” Kenta said, cutting of Tama as he grabbed his hand in his own. “Infection risk. I’m not supposed to let anyone else touch them for a while so they can heal properly.”

Kenta wasn’t sure if Tama’s reaction was actually disappointment or if he was just so desperate to be touched that he was reading too much into things. Either way, he knew he had an opportunity and every cell in his body was screaming at him to just take it.

He pressed Tama’s hand against his chest, maybe an inch below his freshly-pierced nipple, and let his fingers rest just below his pectoral muscle. “Right here though,” Kenta said, “that’s fine.”

Tama raised an eyebrow. “You sure man?” he said. Kenta noticed that Tama didn’t move his hands away. He turned his head to look over his shoulder at Tama and nodded enthusiastically. He saw Tama grin and Kenta couldn’t help but steal a kiss.

It had been so long since Kenta had felt anyone who wasn’t Shibata against his lips that he had forgotten that there was any other way to kiss. And, as much as he wanted to move past what Shibata’s kisses had felt like, he couldn’t help but compare them to what he was experiencing with Tama Tonga. Where Shibata had always been an ardent and methodical lover, with an intensity and purpose to his touch that made Kenta feel like they were the only living beings in the universe, kissing Tama felt dangerous. The cockiness he displayed in the ring was somehow amplified even more when his lips and tongue and teeth were working their way over Kenta. He kissed as if, even though Kenta had made the made the first move, his specific presence was what commanded him to make that move in the first place. He felt Tama’s fingers press hard into his breast, making a concentrated effort to avoid the nipple itself, and Kenta responded by leaning back into his arms. He reached up and buried his hand in Tama’s hair, pulling his face close against his neck. Tama Tonga was fresh and new and unfamiliar and Kenta felt like he was being utterly consumed by it, as if it was moving him past Katsuyori Shibata by sheer force of will.

Tama’s other hand drifted down Kenta’s abs before resting against the waistband of his low-slung jeans. He felt Tama fumble with the zipper before giving up entirely and just shoving his entire hand down the front of his jeans, pawing at Kenta’s cock through his thin cotton underwear. Kenta moaned loudly as he ground himself hard against Tama’s hand. He could feel Tama pulling their bodies together and he wished that he could just be absorbed into him and leave all the feelings about who he had given up to get here behind. 

Kenta caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and smiled. Damn, he thought, Tama looked good with him. He looked hungry for him, with his curls bouncing as he sucked at Kenta’s neck and his hand moving strong and rhythmically beneath denim as Kenta fucked it. He wanted to be utterly devoured by him. He looked like he belonged in Tama’s hands and, if the feeling wasn’t already mutual, he wanted to do everything he could to make it mutual sooner rather than later. He saw that his phone was still lying within reach on the bathroom counter; he grabbed it and snapped about twenty photos before Tama noticed.

“What the fuck, man,” he said, pulling his hand out of Kenta’s jeans. “Are you trying to make it weird or something?”

“Hell no, I noticed we looked hot together and wanted some documentation for myself. Actually, here, take a look,” Kenta said as he passed Tama his phone. “Pick out the ones you like and send them to yourself.”

Kenta picked up his oversized Bullet Club shirt and pulled it on, wincing as the rough fabric brushed against the tender skin on his chest. He looked over at Tama swiping through the photos of the two of them on his phone and was pleased to see that the faces he made looking at the pics were approving ones. Tama thought for a second before typing out a short message and sending it. 

“You know, K,” Tama said as he handed back the phone, “I would have thought you’d have deleted his number by now.”

“Deleted whose...oh,” Kenta felt his heart drop into the bottom of his chest when he noticed that Tama had left his text app pulled up. He had sent himself all of their photos but just above it was another sent message with a single image attached. To Shibata. Kenta cursed under his breath as he opened it and saw the picture of himself, smirking seductively as Tama groped him, captioned with “doing better than ever, miss you never #no regrets #bc4life.” It was already marked as received.

“See, if you wanna burn a bridge with an old friend, you gotta do it right,” Tama said. “You can’t just cut ties, you have to make sure they know you’re living your best life in the process. Never let them see you suffer.”

“Tama, you...you have no idea what you’re talking about,” he muttered.

“What the hell man, do you know how many assholes I’ve cut off? I’ve got this down to a science. Trust me, this is the most effective way I know to end a friendsh-”

“We were fucking,” Kenta cut him off. “He wasn’t just my friend. We were fucking for so many years I lost count.”

Tama didn’t say anything for nearly a minute. “Fuck, man,” he said quietly. “I mean...fuck. Don’t tell me you’ve still got feelings for him too.”

“Of course I’ve still got feelings! No matter how much I try, you can’t just force that many feelings away that quickly.”

“Damn…” Tama said. “Does anyone else know about this?”

Kenta shook his head. “I don’t think so. You’re the only one I’ve told and he was more secretive about...us than I was.”

“And all that ‘soulmates’ stuff?”

“Literal. More literal than anyone ever assumed, I think.”

“Wow, K. I gotta say, it’s a lot to take in. And while I’m glad you’re with us now, I can’t help but wonder: if you two were so close, why break it off?”

Kenta sighed heavily, his head dipping forward over the bathroom sink.

“Sorry man, you don’t have to go into details, but I just lost one of my most promising guys to those Chaos fuckers. I’m not about to lose you too because of outside alliances.”

Kenta didn’t look up, but Tama could see his shoulders bounce slightly as he chuckled silently. “You don’t need to worry about that, Tama,” he said. “The Bullet Club is exactly where I want to be from now on. I guess I my expectations of what it would be like for Shibata-san and I to finally be in the same company didn’t match up to reality. No matter how much we cared for each other, I couldn’t be with him without being in the shadow of him. And I can’t...fuck. I need to call him.”

Tama saw Kenta reach for his phone. “No no no NO. Bro, don’t even think about it. The last thing you should do right now his call him,” he said as he grabbed Kenta’s wrist. “Do you really think he wants to hear from you after he’s seen us going at it? And do you really think that will help you get over him? Just move on. Block his number if you need, but do not call him.”

“Dude, you’re the one who got me into this situation. I need to set things straight.”

“And I’m telling you how to get out of this situation! Do not engage with him!”

Kenta sighed heavily. “Tama, you’ve given me a real place in this company. You’ve given me a place to stay. You’ve given me your friendship and perhaps a little bit extra. And I’m thankful for all that. But you’ve also just really fucked me over just now by sending that text and I just...I need to not be around you for a little bit.”

“Suit yourself, man,” Tama said with a shrug. “And when you call him up and it just makes you feel shittier, that’s on you. I was going out with the rest of the guys tonight but I guess you won’t be joining us then?”

Kenta waved him away. He didn’t react as Tama patted him on the back on his way out of the bathroom.

“I’ll bring you back some beers later!” Tama shouted from down the hall. “In case you want to drown your sorrows because your ex is moving on without you!”

“Fuck off, Tama!” Kenta yelled back.

“I’m just being real with you, K! You’ll thank me later.”

Kenta heard the apartment door open and shut. The latch rattled as Tama locked it and Kenta couldn’t do anything but breathe for several minutes. He splashed some water on his face and ran his fingers through his hair before looking over at his phone. The photo was still pulled up on the screen. There was no response from Shibata.

Kenta grabbed his phone and stared at it before moving to his spare room and collapsing on the couch he had been sleeping on. The worst that could happen, he figured, was that Shibata wouldn’t pick up. A text notification from Tama popped up on his phone screen: “REMEMBER: DON’T CALL HIM!!” Kenta swiped it away and found Shibata’s number in his contacts, an action so familiar he could do it in his sleep, and hit call.

“What do you want.”

Kenta hadn’t even noticed the phone ring before he picked up. He had rehearsed everything in his head that he had wanted to tell Shibata but the moment he heard that deep, stern voice that he had always found so comforting in the past, he forgot every word.

“Look...I didn’t send that photo, Tama Tonga did. He got ahold of my phone and sent that text and I’m still not entirely sure why he thought that was a good idea but he didn’t know about our history and...I just don’t know what I’m feeling right now. I’m sorry you had to see that.”

He could hear Shibata breathing on the other end of the line. “Do you have video calling you can turn on?” he asked after a long pause. “If you’re apologizing, I want to at least see your face when you do it.”

“Oh...umm, yeah,” Kenta said, fumbling with his phone. Their video stream connected and he saw Shibata sitting in what he assumed was the hotel room originally booked for both of them. “What do you need to hear from me?”

Shibata sighed and looked away from his camera. “To be honest, nothing. I want to hear nothing you have to say right now. But I guess we’re talking now so it can’t be helped. Just do me a favor and take that fucking shirt off. It still hurts too much to see you with that skull print on your chest.”

Kenta looked down at the massive Bullet Club shirt he was wearing. As soon as Shibata pointed it out, he felt like he was suffocating in it. He pulled it over his head and tossed it aside, flinching as the rough fabric brushed against the rings in his nipples.

“Well...are those new?” Shibata asked, his face softening just the slightest bit upon seeing Kenta with his shirt off.

“Yeah. I just had them done today.”

“They look nice.”

Kenta could feel himself blush. “They’re not for you,” he said.

“I imagine not. They better not be for anyone else either.”

“They’re not for anyone except me. I wanted to get my nipples pierced and an opportunity opened up so I took it.” He swore he could see Shibata smile the tiniest bit when he said that.

“Oh good,” he said. “I was worried it was something those Bullet Club hooligans put you up to.”

Kenta laughed. “Hell no, I’ve wanted to do this for years. If anything, I may have inspired a few of them to get their own nipples done.”

“Years, you say?”

“Yeah. Years,” Kenta said. “Actually...I wanted to get them done when we were still together but the timing just never worked out.”

“That’s a shame.”

“Maybe once they heal up properly, we can, you know, get together. I’ll let you play with them. For old time’s sake?”

Shibata shook his head and didn’t say anything for a while. “It doesn’t work like that, Kenta-san,” he muttered. “You don’t get to break things off the way you did and just invite me back into your life whenever you get aroused and nostalgic.”

“If you don’t want invited back, why did you even answer my call?”

“Because I’m not over you, okay?” Shibata growled. “Because I’m not over you and I’m trying to stay pissed at you to speed up the process and you are making it extremely difficult!”

“You’re having a hard time? Well, I haven’t been able to get you off my mind since the finals and everything I try to do to move on just reminds me of how good we were for each other!” Kenta yelled back.

“Well, maybe you should have thought of that before you turned on me,” said Shibata as he glared directly into his phone camera, his voice overflowing with a rage that Kenta had never heard come from him outside the ring. He had no response but to stare back at him. As much as he tried to tell himself otherwise, Kenta couldn’t deny that he had hurt him. But he refused to let Shibata think for even a second that he wasn’t also suffering because of the choice he had made.

Shibata was the first to break the long silence between them. “I always knew you weren’t the one who sent that picture,” he muttered.

“Oh...umm, how could you tell?”

“For one thing, what kind of idiot uses hashtags in a text message?”

Kenta couldn’t help but smile. “I didn’t think you knew what hashtags were, Shibata-san,” he said.

“Hey now, my young lions have been teaching me things.”

“Does this mean they’re finally setting you up with an Instagram? You’ll finally join the rest of the world in 2019?”

“Are you kidding? Of course not!” Shibata said, unable to hold back a laugh. “What would I even do with such a thing?”

“Well, you could wait until I post a whole bunch of photos to show off these nipple piercings and like every single one of them. Make it super obvious to the whole world that you’re still pining for me. That’s what you do with Instagram,” said Kenta as he absent-mindedly ran his finger across one of his rings.”

“You are truly terrible at being someone’s ex, Kenta-san. An absolute nightmare. Has anyone you’ve been with ever successfully gotten over you or do you always just keep seducing them back?” he asked. Kenta could tell Shibata was joking, but at the same time, he couldn’t even remember how long it had been since he had broken up with a romantic partner. 

“I guess I’ve just been with you for so long that I forgot how to do it,” he said.

“Or you never learned how in the first place, you cocky little shit,” Shibata said, smirking. “But I’ve been thinking, maybe it is a good thing that you waited until after you broke up with me to get your nipples pierced.”

“Hmm?”

“You have to leave those rings alone for a while so they can heal properly, yes? I’d be so attached to your chest that the piercings would reject by the end of the week.”

Kenta stretched out on his couch to give Shibata a better view of his nipples. “Really, now? Tell me what you’d like to do to me, Shibata-san.”

“Well. I’d like to see how those rings stick out through one of your shirts. A proper shirt, not that fucking tent those Bullet Club chuds gave you. One of those tight little polo shirts you wear all the time. I want to know exactly where to touch you at all times.”

“Go on,” Kenta said as he ran a finger lightly over the small metal ball on his nipple ring.

“I want to know what those rings taste like. How they feel on my tongue, against my lips. I want to see how much they get in the way when I suck on your nipples and how much louder you’ll moan because they’re there. I want to see if the steel is still cold against my own skin or if they conduct the heat of your own body. And I want to hear how loud you scream my name when I take one of those rings in my teeth and pull,” Shibata said, staring at him over the video stream in a way that Kenta could feel in his entire body.

Kenta shifted his weight on the couch. “You know, the offer for you to come do all that once these things heal still stands,” he said quietly.

Shibata chuckled and shook his head. “No. It doesn’t,” he said. “You ended things between us, remember? And I refuse to be the only one of us this sexually frustrated because of your decisions, Kenta-san. So go back to Tama Tonga or whoever and know that, whenever you let them touch those little rings on your chest from now on, you’ll be thinking about how much better I’d be at it. Goodbye, Kenta-san.”

His phone let out a short electronic chime as Shibata ended the call. Kenta bit his lip and rolled onto his side as he stared at Shibata’s contact info on his phone screen. The image Kenta had set for him was a picture of the two of them, taken years ago, smiling at a bar somewhere together while Shibata wrapped his arm around his shoulders and pulled his body in close. He could still remember how Shibata holding him like that felt.

Kenta deleted the photo. He hoped Tama would be back with the beers soon.

**Author's Note:**

> I choose to completely ignore how impractical it would be for Kenta to not only get his nipples pierced with two weeks max before he has to wrestle again but also go with rings instead of barbells. Ishii's gonna chop those things right out of your nips at Royal Quest, boy.
> 
> Also, blonde Kenta is real and it was a fucking [CHOICE](https://twitter.com/Necropantz/status/1143677688978321408?s=20). 
> 
> Addendum 9/14: BLONDE KENTA RETURNS AND IT EXTREMELY SUITS HIM NOW


End file.
